P.C. Hawke Mysteries was a middle school mysteries series by the late Paul Zindel, author of sci fi novels like The Pig-Man.

It is centers on two sleuthing high schoolers whose natural curiosity and ability to see things that adults miss allow them to solve more cases than the incompetent adults. Classic stuff.

I still question whether it is middle grade or lower grade, because these books may be small (100-120 pages max) but they have gruesome content inside. I don’t know how many second graders react to the sociopathic math prodigy or how one victim is butchered, put into a laundry bag and then their internal organs + decapitated head spills out when it is unzipped. Pretty gruesome stuff.

Anyway, P.C. has his tragic backstory of dead mom (from cancer. Nothing homocidal) and his loving dad who is often away on archeological digs all over the world so he stays home alone with his aunt Doris. Ever since his mom’s death he works to help prevent crime if he can so others won’t have to suffer losing a loved one in much crueler deaths.

His best friend and partner in crime, is Mackenzie Riggs. Daughter of NYC coroner, and a psychologist which where she gets her morbid curiosity to fight crime as she likes to anticipate just how the psycho will strike next.

Basically they are a perfect team: P.C. is the one who pieces where, when and how. She figures out the why and what next.

Occasionally they are joined by their hacker friend, Jesus who they never meet in person. They just talk virtually through the computer. He’s like Wade from Kim Possible. They’re like twins in my mind.

However, I think the best part of the series is that they’re total equals when solving crimes and it seems plausible that they’d figure these things out when others can’t (though I have a very good ability at suspending my disbelief so I might be wrong). I will say that the murders are always unique and full of twists and turns.

P.C. is a bit of an average snarky 90s protagonist, always there with a smartass comment, skepticism toward adult’s competence and indifference to those who deride he and Mackenzie as freaks. Mackenzie is like a street-smart Hermonie the way that she lists off the possible psychosis of criminals while flirting with the perps for information. (Again no idea how it is a lower school book. At least 3 middle aged men have flirted with her in the series or asked if she was a prostitute.) and has the fashion sense of Claudia Kishi of BSC with leopard print doc martens, gold clothespin earrings and pink leather miniskirts.

One interesting point I must point out is that she and P.C. seem to have a totally platonic friendship and no interest in each other. And I don’t mean because they see themselves as siblings. They never refer to each other as that once. They’ve been best friends since childhood, know everything about each other and only hang out with each other. Once there weren’t seperate rooms on a cruise ship so they stayed in the same cabin together because they weere “used to sharing.” Sharing what? A bed? There was no mention of a cot anywhere or one sleeping on the floor. Either they are super platonic or Zindel took someone’s advice to keep it lower school level and omit any mention of hormones flying between two teens spending so much alone time together.

There was only one page of jealousy over prospective love interests! One! I don’t know if I should feel happy about such a platonic boy-girl friendship representation or I should feel cheated in not seeing them have a solid relationship based on mutual trust and homocide.

Also on goodreads, it says there are 11 books in the series but besides the titles, book summeries and covers it doesn’t seem the last 3 books are available anywhere so were those never released? I would like to know because it looks interesting.